The present invention relates to a conveyor mechanism for moving a stratified mass of cigarettes or like package of cylindrical articles from a first plane for conveyance to a third plane of a different level via a second plane extending vertically from the first to the third by means of a series of endless conveyor belts.
For the supply of cigarettes from a cigarette making machine to a cigarette packing machine, a large amount of cigarettes must be moved from the output level of the cigarette making machine upwardly to the input or hopper level of the packing machine.
Systems for conveying a layer of cigarettes from a first level to a second level are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,713 (1970), Japanese Patent Publication No. 50-10960 (1975), and Japanese Patent Application Provisional Publication No. 53-75398 (1978). These known systems cannot, however, preclude a difficult installation of a single endless conveyor belt throughout the length of a winding path for conveyance, which may lead from a horizontally extending first plane to a horizontal third plane via a vertical second plane. For this reason, they commonly employ a plurality of belt conveyors for the transfer of articles from one level to another. This type of arrangement is not fully acceptable because the articles are likely to suffer damage when changing from one belt conveyor to another as during transition from a horizontal travel to an elevation and because such shock tends to disturb the mutual alignment of the articles in conveyance.
Furthermore, conventional mechanisms inclusive of the ones discussed above have belt support rollers held exposed to opposite sides of the conveyor belts. This situation may be dangerous for manual removal of inferior articles prepared by a preceding machine and/or misaligned articles.